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Good, I'm glad they were rejected - If they weren't, I wouldn't have known about them, nor would I have purchased one. This way they get their money in the for

Good, I'm glad they were rejected - If they weren't, I wouldn't have known about them, nor would I have purchased one. This way they get their money in the form of guaranteed, up-front orders, and I get a cool new product "before" anyone else. I feel exclusive and I'll have the hot new gadget to show off. It's a win-win, and I hope more companies opt for this route - it is true market validation. (On a related topic, September can't come soon enough. I want mine now)

furyofantares 14y ago
Is Kickstarter a platform for funding cool projects or a store?
- unavoidable 14y ago
  Why can't it be both? It acts a bridge between an unmet demand and an unmet supply: there are consumers thinking, "I wonder if X has been invented? I would pay money for that." And there are designers thinking, "I wonder if anyone would buy X if I made it?" It's conceptually a great match. The hard part was making it credible enough to gain trust. That's Kickstarter's biggest strength.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - furyofantares 14y ago
    I think it can be and sort of is both right now, yeah. And I'm loving it, but it also makes sense for people to have different expectations from a store than from a project they are backing. When I give a store money, they owe me a product. When I back a project, they owe me their effort. So it's a bit weird to me when the language being used is mostly store language rather than funding language. I don't think anybody has purchased a Pebble yet.
  - paulrosenzweig 14y ago
    I love that their brand's credibility enables projects to launch that wouldn't have been able to otherwise. But, once a project far exceeds its launch goal Kickstarter becomes a store that charges 5%.
- baddox 14y ago
  Is there a difference in this case? I doubt they could have afforded to produce 4 million dollars worth of the watches without a good, semi-guaranteed estimation of consumer interest.
- bambax 14y ago
  It should develop the "store" part. It's very frustrating to stumble upon a project that's already funded and for which you don't know where to get the product anymore. It would be a natural extension to let late comers buy products after they were launched.
  - xal 14y ago
    Almost all the funded hardware projects end up on Shopify afterwards. Including pebble. The "store" part is actually a tremendously complex software to do well, hardly a feature you add to an existing system.
    - joshuacc 14y ago
      I'm curious. Is this due to Shopify's reputation, or do you specifically seek out successful Kickstarter campaigns as potential customers?
      - xal 14y ago
        It just happened. We started contacting them now but it was all word of mouth.
chmike 14y ago
The problem wih upfront selling is the risk to not be delivered. Some buyers are not really aware of the risk. The amount of money in play is quite low but the disapointment will be as big as the initial expectation. If everything goes well then it's a win win, but amounts in play will start to attract crooks. It looks like too easy money. As long as kickstarter was under the radar, only well intended people where using it. When the offered rewards are goods or services, then kickstarter is an upfront selling shop and these are high risk deals. The risk could be evaluted, but buyers have only videos and some text to evaluate it by themselves for now.
- ericd 14y ago
  That's a good point. From my experience in dealing with marketplaces where scammers can earn 10k/scam, they're quite hard to effectively suss out beforehand and block, and they adapt. I can only imagine what the lure of a 100k or or more will draw in terms of creativity. I really hope there's some effective structural or procedural safeguards that we're not aware of, because the obscurity is gone. If they can get past that, I think Kickstarter has a very bright future.
  - GFischer 14y ago
    There are a lot of Kickstarter clones (or re-spins) starting up, as it is often said, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery :)
    - randomdata 14y ago
      I've come to learn that people will copy everything. I once built an iPhone app that seems to have topped out at around $500/year in income; barely enough to secure a developer for a day. Yet, I found two apps that I would consider clones of mine with many similar characteristics, not just someone trying to enter the same market. I was quite flattered to see them, but I remain curious why they'd go after such small potatoes? It seems like copying something that has a sustainable business model would be the better choice.
backspace 14y ago
I humbly offer a contrary view. It's the fashionable thing to joke about VC's making wrong investments, investments at bubble prices, not knowing what they are doing, etc. But let's face it, it's their job to make sound investments. Sure, they may not get it 100% right, or even 50% but their job is to continually improve this success metric. It's great that companies like Kickstarter are giving average consumers the capability to fund these sorts of companies but let's not equate the consumers' endorsement of the startup as the potential for value or ability to succeed. VC's do their due diligence for a reason, they want to back successful companies. Average consumers funding on Kickstarter are not doing their due diligence, they're looking at the marketing pitch and handing over their hard earned dollars. I fear this is bad for both the startup ecosystem as well as for consumers. There will be companies on Kickstarter that take money and fail. My prediction is that it will be higher than the startup space. So before we get caught up on buying exclusivity with this fundraising, let's do our due diligence.
- snowwrestler 14y ago
  It's not just "make sound investments," VC's need to make investments that will pay off big enough to meet their promised rate of return over the promised time horizon. (They are investing other people's money.) It's certainly possible for VC's to think that an idea has merit, but is not right for VC-type investment. Kickstarter allows time horizons and rates of return of arbitrary size. These guys now already have everything a business needs: capital and customers. Unless they commit outright theft there is no reason they can't succeed with this project. But there is also no requirement that they keep it going after their last investor gets his or her watch. They can just do it to the size needed to hit the natural demand, and then call it quits. You can't do that with VC money.
  - backspace 14y ago
    VC's are working for their investors, and this startup is probably more apt for Kickstarter funding. But my salient point is that average consumers cannot and usually will not do their due diligence on whether the people who are raising the money have a good chance of succeess. I hope you're not suggesting all a business needs to be successful is capital and customers. Because that's just plain dangerous.

furyofantares 14y ago

Is Kickstarter a platform for funding cool projects or a store?

unavoidable 14y ago
Why can't it be both? It acts a bridge between an unmet demand and an unmet supply: there are consumers thinking, "I wonder if X has been invented? I would pay money for that." And there are designers thinking, "I wonder if anyone would buy X if I made it?" It's conceptually a great match. The hard part was making it credible enough to gain trust. That's Kickstarter's biggest strength.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- furyofantares 14y ago
  I think it can be and sort of is both right now, yeah. And I'm loving it, but it also makes sense for people to have different expectations from a store than from a project they are backing. When I give a store money, they owe me a product. When I back a project, they owe me their effort. So it's a bit weird to me when the language being used is mostly store language rather than funding language. I don't think anybody has purchased a Pebble yet.
- paulrosenzweig 14y ago
  I love that their brand's credibility enables projects to launch that wouldn't have been able to otherwise. But, once a project far exceeds its launch goal Kickstarter becomes a store that charges 5%.
baddox 14y ago
Is there a difference in this case? I doubt they could have afforded to produce 4 million dollars worth of the watches without a good, semi-guaranteed estimation of consumer interest.
bambax 14y ago
It should develop the "store" part. It's very frustrating to stumble upon a project that's already funded and for which you don't know where to get the product anymore. It would be a natural extension to let late comers buy products after they were launched.
- xal 14y ago
  Almost all the funded hardware projects end up on Shopify afterwards. Including pebble. The "store" part is actually a tremendously complex software to do well, hardly a feature you add to an existing system.
  - joshuacc 14y ago
    I'm curious. Is this due to Shopify's reputation, or do you specifically seek out successful Kickstarter campaigns as potential customers?
    - xal 14y ago
      It just happened. We started contacting them now but it was all word of mouth.

chmike 14y ago

The problem wih upfront selling is the risk to not be delivered. Some buyers are not really aware of the risk. The amount of money in play is quite low but the disapointment will be as big as the initial expectation. If everything goes well then it's a win win, but amounts in play will start to attract crooks. It looks like too easy money. As long as kickstarter was under the radar, only well intended people where using it. When the offered rewards are goods or services, then kickstarter is an upfront selling shop and these are high risk deals. The risk could be evaluted, but buyers have only videos and some text to evaluate it by themselves for now.

ericd 14y ago
That's a good point. From my experience in dealing with marketplaces where scammers can earn 10k/scam, they're quite hard to effectively suss out beforehand and block, and they adapt. I can only imagine what the lure of a 100k or or more will draw in terms of creativity. I really hope there's some effective structural or procedural safeguards that we're not aware of, because the obscurity is gone. If they can get past that, I think Kickstarter has a very bright future.
- GFischer 14y ago
  There are a lot of Kickstarter clones (or re-spins) starting up, as it is often said, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery :)
  - randomdata 14y ago
    I've come to learn that people will copy everything. I once built an iPhone app that seems to have topped out at around $500/year in income; barely enough to secure a developer for a day. Yet, I found two apps that I would consider clones of mine with many similar characteristics, not just someone trying to enter the same market. I was quite flattered to see them, but I remain curious why they'd go after such small potatoes? It seems like copying something that has a sustainable business model would be the better choice.

backspace 14y ago

I humbly offer a contrary view. It's the fashionable thing to joke about VC's making wrong investments, investments at bubble prices, not knowing what they are doing, etc. But let's face it, it's their job to make sound investments. Sure, they may not get it 100% right, or even 50% but their job is to continually improve this success metric. It's great that companies like Kickstarter are giving average consumers the capability to fund these sorts of companies but let's not equate the consumers' endorsement of the startup as the potential for value or ability to succeed. VC's do their due diligence for a reason, they want to back successful companies. Average consumers funding on Kickstarter are not doing their due diligence, they're looking at the marketing pitch and handing over their hard earned dollars. I fear this is bad for both the startup ecosystem as well as for consumers. There will be companies on Kickstarter that take money and fail. My prediction is that it will be higher than the startup space. So before we get caught up on buying exclusivity with this fundraising, let's do our due diligence.

snowwrestler 14y ago
It's not just "make sound investments," VC's need to make investments that will pay off big enough to meet their promised rate of return over the promised time horizon. (They are investing other people's money.) It's certainly possible for VC's to think that an idea has merit, but is not right for VC-type investment. Kickstarter allows time horizons and rates of return of arbitrary size. These guys now already have everything a business needs: capital and customers. Unless they commit outright theft there is no reason they can't succeed with this project. But there is also no requirement that they keep it going after their last investor gets his or her watch. They can just do it to the size needed to hit the natural demand, and then call it quits. You can't do that with VC money.
- backspace 14y ago
  VC's are working for their investors, and this startup is probably more apt for Kickstarter funding. But my salient point is that average consumers cannot and usually will not do their due diligence on whether the people who are raising the money have a good chance of succeess. I hope you're not suggesting all a business needs to be successful is capital and customers. Because that's just plain dangerous.